The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief by Steven Mayoff

Samson Grief is an artist who has been living a quiet, solitary life in Prince Edward Island for almost twenty years when he is visited by three red-headed figments of his imagination. Judas, Fagin, and Shylock have come to convince Samson that he has been chosen by the “Supreme One” to build a synagogue on the island, after the construction of which, Prince Edward Island will become the new “Promised Land.”

Samson doubts his sanity and tries to shake off these “figs” but they are persistent, and when a 6-legged starfish appears in his most recent painting–and he has no memory of putting it there himself–he is reluctantly convinced to do something, if for no other reason than to be rid of the figs. But what to do and how to do it, especially without marking himself as delusional?

Samson comes to find out there’s no way to do it without ruffling feathers and bringing a lot of unwanted attention to himself. As the story goes on, things get more and more absurd: he makes the acquaintance of a woman whose online character is the political dominatrix Anne Surly, then, in turn, her mother. Anne Surly’s father is a prominent businessman turned politician, bent on becoming premier. He is the head of a secret project going on in Rossiter’s Field, which happens to be where the Supreme One wants to see the Synagogue built. Samson scrambles around, trying to navigate the goings-on while helplessly watching his new home of PEI transform before his eyes.

Somehow that was as apt a metaphor as any for the place we had come to. Inboxes crammed to the limit with unheard messages, emitting beeps to get the attention of a world that alternated between being cold and uncaring to being scared and unwilling.

This book is a unique look at power, politics, faith, and people in today’s world. As absurd as Samson’s story might seem on the surface, it’s really not that much more absurd than the world we live in – power hungry people and the wrath of Mother Earth. Steven Mayoff offers us a chuckle at the same time as holding up a mirror. A thoroughly enjoyable political satire, ironically set on the quaint, quiet land that begat Anne of Green Gables.

The original concept of the painting was yet another fantasia of Jewish iconography set on modern-day Prince Edward Island. The problem was I still couldn’t make up my mind: should I depict Moses leading his people onto the shores of North Cape or should they be escaping it? And if the latter, who were they fleeing from? Lobster fishermen? Potato farmers? Japanese tourists?

Have a look at this interview with Steven Mayoff to find out where his idea for this book came from, at what point he worried he might be going too far, and advice for others writing political satire.

Jawbone by Meghan Greeley

I wouldn’t have thought I’d read two books about a contest for a trip to Mars within a year of each other. The first being Deborah Willis’s Girlfriend on Mars, and now Jawbone. That, however, is where the similarities end – this is a very different book.

The story of this young woman starts off very intimately. She’s found a cabin in the “loneliest place in the world.” She told the owner she was looking for “the kind of place that will make me feel like I’m the sole occupant of a distant planet without water or oxygen or microbial life.”

This is the cabin where she plans to record her one minute video to enter the contest: “this one-room cabin has become my lone little planet.” The only problem is she had her jaw wired shut after an accident, and even though it is no longer wired, the “ghosts of the wires wire me shut.”

I drink my muffin smoothie through a straw, sucking the thick, starchy liquid through my teeth. It’s amazing how much living you can do without opening your mouth at all.

The remarkable thing about this book is the imagery. She scalds her skin in the shower until it is “raw and red”, the smoothie she makes is red , as is the recording light on the camera. There is a long strand of her hair “dangling from the tripod.” In the following passage, she listens to the “electricity coursing through the filament.”

The camera has been recording for thirteen minutes. The rules say that I am only allowed to speak for one minute. This was not the winning take. This was the seventy-eighth not-winning take. I knew it was another failed experiment the moment I pressed record and started listening to the lightbulb. My head was beside a lamp, and I could hear electricity coursing through the filament. The bulb hummed in a key I didn’t like, so I turned out the lamp and let the camera document the dark and the nothing and me in the dark with nothing to say.

She makes a list of things that we say are red but are not truly red, and things that are truly red. One of which is “your hair.” And we wonder, whose hair? Here, the narrative starts going back to the story of her and the “you” that she loves. This “you” that does not love her back in the way she wants. So she finds herself alone in this cabin, hoping to win a one-way trip to Mars.

Delightful, gem-y little snippets:

For as long as I can remember, I have concocted email passwords from the things of which I am most deeply ashamed. This way, I will never forget.

Astronauts struggle to cry in space because tears don’t fall–they gather and cling to the eyeball in one globular bead. Astronauts learn not to cry because space tears sting.

My twisted, bruised face was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen because it matched my insides.

The sun is very bright. I’d forgotten about the sun. I’d also forgotten about the moth, but it has not forgotten the sun. It flies through the open door like it’s being summoned. I stare at the light on the water like it’s porn. I stare at it like I could really get off on it. I think: I could do without it though. I think: I don’t need it. I think: Light is a privilege, and all of mine should be revoked.

And because I love jellyfish, I can’t forget about the ones they saw at an aquarium that were “milky as full moons.”

Thank you to Radiant Press and River Street Writing for sending me copies of these books!